[dpain]

CTO of Fabric8 here - happy to answer any questions you may have about the technology or company. As you can tell we've got a process that's quite different than other metal AM techniques with some very unique benefits that we're excited to share!

[jimbooonooo]

Tons of questions, this is incredibly cool! Can you discuss:

1.) How you compensate for anode consumption/geometry changes over the lifetime of the anode. For instance, does the center get worn away or do you try to uniformly use each "pixel".

2.) More details on anode "pixel" geometry and minimum feature size.

3.) Can you talk about the development process? Did you have in situ measurement, or post build analysis of the part and anode.

4.) Typical surface finish?

[cjbgkagh]

It’s really cool and I wish I had one of these machines. On the assumption that I couldn’t afford such a machine myself for DIY, it would be really cool to have a send-cut-send like service. It seems like the relatively gentle process and I assume predictable results with minimal post processing would lend itself to an high degree of automation. Perhaps a scale out manufacturing set up where the speed of an individual machine is less important than the throughput of having many machines.

There are a lot of little random things that I would design if I knew there was a capability to have it made at non-aerospace prices. Initially heatsinks, manifolds, heat exchangers, but possibly many random things depending on the pricing.

[Tossrock]

You can get on-demand metal printing from Shapeways. Somewhat expensive compared to sendcutsend, but still far below aerospace.

[cjbgkagh]

Sure, there is a huge gamut of prices from aerospace to just above material costs. On the expensive side I would use it judiciously, on the economical side I would use it for just about everything and so would many others. I do a bit of DIY and a large amount of the design work is to work around limitations of cheaper materials and cheaper processes. Most of what I make is onesie-twosie where the design costs dominate so I can afford to spend more on a more expensive materials and processes to cut back on the design. But it would be extra amazing if there was an economical high quality process that is suitable for prototyping and would also be amenable to cost competitive mass manufacturing. That would be absolutely world changing. If I could just list designs somewhere and customers have them printed on demand, either via Amazon or some drop-ship, I could recoup a lot of the design costs so I could spend more time designing things - maybe even make a career out of it. Instead of needing a whole factory to support the low cost manufacturing of a single part it could just be a design document sitting on a server somewhere.

I understand that it is not in Fabric8s interest to do this though, expensive machines are high margin and exclusivity is required to maintain a bit of a monopoly for their customers so that their customers can justify purchasing the expensive machines in the first place. If Fabric8 were to start out with expensive machines and then subsequently release cheaper machines they would burn their previous customers. That would make this one of the many cool things that I can't use until the patents expire which would be a damn shame and would also make the technology completely uninteresting to me as I would have to focus on alternatives in the interim. It took a long time to go from Rep-Rap to Bambu Labs for FDM but with increased interest in the space that process is speeding up. Hopefully Micronics will manage a consumer Nylon SLS printer. A ton of small scale manufacturing technology is being made cheaply enough for home use and services like PCBWay and Send-Cut-Send have really democratized high quality manufacturing. I can make many things production quality with near zero overheads and I can buy things from others who have done the same at similarly low costs.

Something like send-cut-send for ECAM seems inevitable and it would be up to Fabric8 to decide if they want to cannibalize themselves instead of having someone else undercut them. I don't know how defendable their patents are, there does seem to be a fair amount of prior art. There is probably a bunch of trade secrets though. For them one of the downsides of having such a promising solution is that there is an even greater incentive for competitors to enter the market. I would posit that long term there is more money to be made with a scale-out low margin mass market solution where they could better leverage trade secrets gleaned from process experience than than selling individual high margin machines. If they kept overheads low enough it would never be in anyone else's interest to enter the market and they could leverage their trade secrets for above average returns ad infinitum.

[Tossrock]

> If I could just list designs somewhere and customers have them printed on demand, either via Amazon or some drop-ship, I could recoup a lot of the design costs so I could spend more time designing things - maybe even make a career out of it.

This is literally what Shapeways does: https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace

[cjbgkagh]

What I meant with 'amenable to mass manufacturing' is that it would be low cost, shapeways metal printing is too expensive to be used for most things.

I specifically called out that ECAM should be amenable to low cost mass manufacturing in a way that metal SLS is not.

[john_minsk]

Very detailed description. Would it be a bad idea for your customers to take your design document and test it in virtual environment and once tests are passed - you would go to production right away?

[cjbgkagh]

Not sure on the question. I'm primarily a software guy so I'd prefer to not interact with customers at all so it could be a commission type set up. It's unlikely that I could make as much money from hardware as I do from software so while being a hardware designer sounds like fun it will likely just be in support of my software work. I do ML and water cool my GPUs to get an extra 30% perf out of them but getting water cooling blocks can be a pain with slow and unreliable supply. EKWB is currently having issues because they buy in bulk from wholesalers and push product on to vendors who then try to sell to customers so when the market dips there are cashflow problems. I would prefer to be able to buy a GPU, measure the geometry, whip up some CAD and send it off for production. It really simplifies things.

[john_minsk]

If I understand correctly: you want to create your own design of a water cooling for your GPU (let's say RTX4090) - test it to make sure it will work in the real world - and once test is successful send your CAD to factory and they can produce and assemble all components?

Are you doing it for the whole cooling unit from scratch or just 1 part? (like a fan or some holder)?

What is the most common reason you would order v2 from the manufacturer after you receive v1 and test it in the real world?

[john_minsk]

On a second read, I would like to rewrite your workflow as follows:

I would prefer to be able to:

[x] buy a GPU, -> [v] Download SimReady USD of your GPU from nVidia website.

[v] whip up some CAD

[v] import USD of nVidia card into CAD

[v] measure the geometry using CAD

[v] Design cooling element

-> Export CAD to USD

-> Import CAD as SimReady Asset into nVidia Omniverse with tests you need.

-> Once simulation is OK send final CAD to production (or better from GPU simulation into simulation of production on one of the factories or 3d printers)

In this scenario:

- SimReady USD of a GPU must already exist inside nVidia. They could make it available for simulation inside Omniverse. (or build open high level model yourself)

- Thermal simulation app is something that nVidia needs for their business now and in the future. They could share current software with public and let people like you download it, change it and run simulations with your changes (or build open high level model yourself)

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to simulate important effects on your models. Do you think the above process has potential to improve your process or did I miss some important detail of your work?

[cjbgkagh]

Found this video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zM1ux9BU4_c

It appears that Fabric8 do intend on targeting all the way down to low margin mass manufacturing with a high number of low cost machines which they run in house on a manufacturing service basis. They’re targeting 1000+ batches but I assume in time they’ll be able to do the very small batch stuff as well. Perhaps with a strategic partner that’ll deal with the small annoying customers like me. I’m super exited by this technology and am happy that they’re targeting areas that I think will be most impactful for the world of manufacturing, as well as long term profitable for them, and hopefully eventually very accessible for DIYers like myself.

[justinclift]

Good find! @IWinfield (also in this HN thread) is in the video too. :)

[cjbgkagh]

I think most regular people are in the dark on how much the world is set to change by such process improvements as these. Cheap complexity is like internet level world changing, maybe more so. You really can download a car.

[sesuximo]

I’d buy some parts if there was a service! Could be a good way to get the word out

[darksaints]

A couple of questions:

1) can you print on oxide, nitride, or carbide ceramics?

2) can you print on shaped materials? Like for example, printing a pcb directly onto the inner side of a rigid shell for an aerofoil/wing?

3) what sort of material restrictions come with electrochemical printing? Can you do aluminum? Titanium?

4) what is the minimum feature size? Could this, for example, print a controlled porous/wick structure with pore sizes around 50um?

5) for those of us without the capital to buy a printer, will you also offer printing services?

[dpain]

1 - Yes, we are currently doing this 2 - Right now our focus is on flat substrates, curved surfaces are a little trickier 3 - Any pure metal or alloy system that can be electroplated would be compatible with our approach. Aluminum and Titanium are difficult but not impossible. We're focused on copper as our first commercial material but have other material systems in development. 4 - Our current pixel size is 33 microns, ~50micron negative features should be doable. Controlled wick structures are actually a really good application of the technology 5 - Our primary business model actually is to offer print services to our customers. Feel free to reach out to me via email in profile if there's an application you'd like to explore

[Nathanael_M]

Where does this fall on the hazardous/toxicity scale? What kind of off-gassing/risks are there, especially compared to existing high resolution powder based systems?

Disclaimer: I don’t know much about this field, this may be a dumb question.

[dpain]

Much safer than existing powder-based systems. The feedstock is effectively water based so none of the flammability risks of metal powder. No special gases required, no high powered lasers or thermal processing sytems.

That being said it still is an industrial process and requires responsible handling of the feedstock and equipment to ensure safety to personnel and the environment.

[Nathanael_M]

Thanks for the response!

[tastyfreeze]

Metallic ionic solutions are usually strong acids. They are made by dissolving metal in sulfuric or nitric acids. Looks like they are using copper sulfate as the electrolyte. After the copper is deposited you are left with sulfuric acid.

[Joel_Mckay]

How did your team handle the clogging problem with these designs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-UbDk7LrvU

Best regards, =3

[justinclift]

That's a cool video. They even show creating multi-metal stuff with it, which seems like it'd be pretty lined up for creating meta-materials when using a small enough tip resolution. :)

https://youtu.be/B-UbDk7LrvU?si=1GeqL7aoLbG6PBCH&t=462

[Joel_Mckay]

Someone probably has something better already sitting on a shelf somewhere... =3

[FrostKiwi]

First time hearing about the technique, sounds exciting.

I see a close comparison in features to SLM [1], which is already established as a core 3D Metal printing technique for a long time. SLM has precision down to the size of a mechanical pencil's lead. In what way is ECAM better? Is it more precision + no need to handle powder or shield gas + no need for laser source and containment, minus ECAM being slower. Am I missing some crucial feature?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_laser_melting

[ipsum2]

Can we see a benchy?

[adrian_b]

Which are exactly the metals that you can currently print by ECAM?

The images suggest pure copper. Are there any alloys that can be printed at this time?

[cpitman]

Your website mentions printing on pcbs, do you expect this to be a competitive option for pcb prototyping or manufacture?

[michaelt]

PCB prototype manufacturing is already exceptionally cheap compared to pretty much all other forms of outsourced manufacturing.

You can get 10 PCBs for $20 including worldwide shipping. Pricing for CNC or laser cutting or 3D printing just doesn't go that low.

[dpain]

certainly an area we're keeping an eye on.

[phkahler]

Has there been any work on photoelectric plating? You could then use DPL to project a pattern for an entire layer at once. I'm not sure how one could ensure uniform thickness. Just wondering if the basics of such an approach have been developed or if its even possible.

[philipswood]

This is so cool!

What kind of currents do you need?

I've considered the idea before and it seemed to me that since you need a fixed number of electrons for every metal ion you deposit that the currents end up being huge.

Also deposit speeds tend to be slow. How fast can your process layer metal (say in grams per hour)?

[dpain]

Yes, currents can be high as they directly correlate with build rate. But the voltages are typically low, making it a lower power process than one would think.

100-1000x faster than a typical electroplating process

[InDubioProRubio]

What sort of crystallization behaviour can one expect from this process? Can one controll the crystallization formation?